GAO Recommends Strategy for XML Adoption

The U.S. General Accounting Office, Congresss investigative arm, is warning that government information technology system developers should be wary of pitfalls in implementing extensible markup language.

But the GAOs report to the Senates government affairs committee on XML adoption in electronic government also recommends that the government develop a strategy for government-wide adoption of XML patterned after or adapted from the governments electronic data interchange coordination.

The report concludes that top administration management and technology offices have not yet formulated a strategy for XML adoption to guide agency implementation. "Without agreement on a government-wide implementation strategy agencies risk building and buying systems that will not work with each other in the future," the 73-page report notes.

The GAO also recommends that the strategy should use a pilot XML registry effort of the federal CIO Council as an operational government-wide resource. "This plan should include identifying time frames and resources needed to implement and maintain an operational registry linked to agency repositories of standard data structures," the report says.